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Sunday, April 29, 2012

Pleasing Profusion

'Alchymist'

I blogged yesterday that my garden had exploded with roses and I thought that everyone deserved at least a little peek at the bounty therein. There were 170 rose bushes blooming when I counted yesterday. 'Alchymist', with a rainbow of colors in one bloom, leads the way into my scenery and provides the hook for my readers to take a peek. 'One of my two 'Alchymist' is blooming the best and healthiest I've ever seen it, so I'm reaping the rewards from deciding to trim this stiff-armed climber into a bush form.

My front bed (below) is alive right now with color all over from the roses, irises, peonies, and a weigela. I took this picture as I was taking prom pictures of my daughter yesterday evening. The roses seen are (left to right), cheerful tricolored 'Betty Boop', scarlet 'Hunter', yellow-orange 'Morden Sunrise', and cardinal 'Champaign' in the shade at back.

My back patio bed is a string of shrub roses. Just barely blooming, at the top, are white 'Madame Hardy' and pink 'Fantin Latour', with the more profuse pink flowers of (back to front), 'David Thompson', 'Carefree Beauty', 'Prairie JOY', (not Prairie Sunrise'), 'Zephirine Drouhin', and 'Jeanne Lavoie' stealing the show. Oh, and a deep red 'Dark Lady' at the bottom by the pot.

'Variegata di Bologna'

My main formal rose bed (below), which contains almost 50 roses, simply boasts roses too numerous to name, but it is a wave of color. Front and center in the foreground is towering 'Earth Song', with a shaded bright yellow 'Sunsprite' beneath its feet and a 'Garden Party' to the side. However, every year I await one special rose from this bed, the scrumptious 'Variegata di Bologna', pictured from yesterday at the right.

I can't show everything today, there are just too many roses out there in the garden proper, but I'll leave you with a taste of the bed I call my "rose berm". This was my first shrub rose planting, and the west end of the bed, seen here, has a number including (roughly left to right) 'Linda Campbell', 'Iceberg', 'Double Red Knockout', 'Harison's Yellow', 'Souvenir de Philemon Cochet', 'Hawkeye Belle', and (in the foreground), 'Rose de Rescht'. Yes, you didn't read it wrong, I have a 'Double Red Knockout' front and center despite my ranting about them. Nobody's perfect.

I hope all your rose days to come are as happy and contented as mine are right now!

9 comments:

All I can say (not very eloquently) is, "Wow!" I knew you had a lot of roses...but you have A LOT OF (GORGEOUS) ROSES!!! And they all look so lush and healthy and happy, even though they live on the Kansas prairie. Your heart must be singing as you walk among them this year....

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